A coffee shop in Ocean Village is bringing a Japanese touch to the city every Thursday night with hi-fidelity album listening parties.
Good Things on Canute Road are telling customers to “talk less, listen more” in their professionally sound-proofed listening area, where customers can enjoy a full-album at optimal quality in front of an expert sound system.
“It’s a lost art to sit and listen to a full album,” said Jay Hamdaoui, who runs the venue.
“People come together to listen to albums in cities like Paris and London, but we found in our research that it has Japanese origins, and there’s nowhere else on the South Coast that does this.”
Local DJs and record stores are the ‘curators’ of these evenings, picking three of their favourite albums to be played in the evening.
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Staff jumped ship from Mettricks, The Jetty and the Ministry of Sound club in London – hires that Jay called a “coup” - and now run the coffee shop located in the old Mango Thai Tapas building.
“We told these guys about the concept and they lit up and came and joined us,” Jay said.
“Music is at the core of everything we do. To us, music is just as important as what we put on the menu.”
Good Things has been trading for 13 weeks, and in its infancy Jay admitted that the listening parties have not reached their full potential yet.
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Jay said: “Southampton can be a little bit difficult when bringing a brand new concept.
“But customers came in straight away and said ‘this is the kind of place you find in London,’ being born and bred in Southampton like me, it’s a bit depressing to hear that.
“People shouldn’t feel like they need to go to London for this experience, it should be on their doorstep.”
Good Things are currently offering two for one cocktail deals on Thursday nights to attract more customers to their album listening parties.
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